Surrender
by snitchesgetstitchesbitches
Summary: Hisoka's reality is disrupted from the moment the first petal falls from his lips, ripe with secrets that would be better left to decompose, buried in the recesses of his mind. The ghost of the eldest Zoldyck child trailing his every movement and thought, ever omnipresent, only serves to speed up the process. [Hanahaki disease AU]


_**Warnings: implied child prostitution, implied rape/non-con, child abuse, strange sexual situations, Hisoka and Illumi are their own warnings.**_

**A/N:** _Welcome to my first hisoillu fic :) I just gotta love how HxH and this pairing completely took over my life lmao. I hope you enjoy this weird one-shot and please, don't forget to leave some feedback, even if it's just to yell at me for ruining the portrayal of your faves or whatever. _

_The title was taken from the homonymous song by Natalie Taylor because I, like Square Enix, enjoy immensely using songs that are tonally inconsistent but in my heart of hearts they perfectly fit my fucked up ships. Go and listen to the song either way, trust me._

* * *

**Surrender**

The first time it happens, you are observing the cadence of your fingers in the mirror as they apply mascara—an effort to divert your focus from the areas of your face where proof of your insomnia lays exposed— and thinking about the Zoldycks. Lipstick smeared mouth, hair a little humid from your morning shower, the initial shapes of a star and a teardrop half done over your cheekbones, your current looks would surely disgust any member of said family just as much as your usual ensemble would. You know without having met the entire lot of them, can perfectly envision the disdain those eyes you have not seen in person could show you.

You know because the eldest Zoldyck child looked at you, that first time, the day your paths crossed, with round holes of deceiving nothingness, dark abysmal whirlpools that became larger once they stopped on your figure and failed to conceal the distaste lurking within their depths. You beamed at him, that day, struggling to maintain the stitches of an unbothered façade as your skin crawled; the weight of scrutiny fell upon your shoulders like it had when you were younger, and just like in those earlier times, you wished you were immune to the righteous fire burning in the eyes that grazed you. Wished for thicker barriers, wished for more foundation, wished that you didn't wish to rip the meaty bandage sweetly hugging bones solely for the repulsed intent in other people's visages.

Maybe he saw you and immediately knew, detected the unworthiness of the being external to his perfect and untainted murderous little bunch like his elitist Zoldyck nature demanded, scented the rubble life source that sustains your body, saw the afterimages of dirt permanently adhered to you, the infected cuts and bruises, the festering worms in your stomach from feeding on things that weren't meant for human consumption, the filthy bed sheets you used to dress with because you had nothing else, and the failed attempts at morphing your appearance into being something different than the starving, poor, vomit drenched, miserable tiny creature you were until your early teens.

Zoldycks, you thought then, and still think now, with their banal propriety, with the self-entitled superiority, with their nearly incestuous tendencies—

Your breath stutters. Golden explodes across the whites of your eyes. Something wheezes quickly up your convulsing throat and you suddenly wish to regurgitate everything you have consumed in the past couple of days. Whatever is causing the revolting sensation arrives to your oral cavity, stinging with the acidity of bile and a very familiar taste of iron and screams; it gets stuck on its way out as you press your lips tightly together, preventing the exit.

Your heart, a throbbing fragile box, is hammering, your palms are humid, cold, the mascara brush is no longer in your hold and you can't recall when you let go to begin with.

Carefully, you dig behind your teeth with a sharpened nail.

It turns out to be a yellow flower petal, the thing on the pad of your index finger, blood speckled and wet with saliva.

Sneering, you let it fall to the carpet next to the forgotten mascara brush, and the display of teeth in the mirror cracks as your fists slams into glass with rash fury.

* * *

On the night of your eighth birthday, you are gifted with a love story.

Outside 'home' the air is clean and fresh and you actually feel like you can breathe. There is a slight limp to your steps as you walk, but you don't wince, not anymore, the pain in your lower back is the soundtrack music to your existence, part of the job, you've come to learn (father and mother say so), and it's not much more different to the itch on the inside of your sticky and bruised thighs that you scratch away with sharp, dirty nails. That it doesn't bother you as much as it used to, though, doesn't mean that you don't think about every what if to your everyday life, that sometimes you don't stand over the sleeping figures of your parents and wonder, that you don't stare at the thrumming pulses on men and women's necks, curious, yearning.

You continue to chew on the same gum you have been chewing on since last week. It makes you feel less hungry. When you have to work you always safe-keep your bland gum beneath the ratty mattress or the tiny hole on the wall opposite the bed. For some reason, neither rats nor cockroaches frequent those places, which is amazing as far as you are concerned.

There is a lady sitting on your usual bench, reading. You freeze, hands hanging limply at your sides, pupils running over her haggard appearance, the sickening shimmer of her skin, the bloodshot opening of her tired eyes. She smiles at you with yellowish teeth and settles the torn, wrinkled magazine on her lap.

"Hello, child," she says, staring blankly at your bare feet and legs, at the glistening red and purple marks on them. "You live around here, don't you? I might have seen you before."

You pull on a sleeve that's falling off the curve of one bony shoulder. "You probably have." Shrugging, you sit next to her, chewing your gum quietly, observing the stars in the sky wink intermittently at you.

The silence stretches on indefinitely.

Eventually, you whisper, "Today is my birthday."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"Congratulations, then."

"Thank you. My parents still made me do work stuff, though. I wish they didn't. I'm exhausted," Yawning loudly, you elevate your arms above your head. The flimsy fabric of your shirt rises to your belly button, revealing dark bruises on your navel. On an unconscious level, you are probably trying to force a scandalized reaction out of this woman. Blasé attitudes, even at this age, make you unbearably intrigued, and you always want to see what they would look like once they shatter.

She does not react, merely states, "I was like you, once. It seems like a lifetime has passed already since those days."

"Oh, what a coincidence," you mutter with real interest. You suppose you can see them, the vestiges of a life in which this woman was pretty- radiant, the kind to attract and sell well- in the green shade of her irises and the long stream of pale purple hair flowing down to her hips.

Her forehead wrinkles, "How old did you say you were?"

"I didn't. I'm eight years old now." You signal the correct number of years, a whole palm splayed and three fingers of your other hand held up.

"Eight years old, huh. I guess you deserve some advice."

You blink slowly, expectant.

"Don't fall in love, kid. None of them are worth it, no matter what sweet promises they make or the affection they so easily offer."

A cutting smile splits your face, "Fall in love? Pffft. Why would I?"

It sounds funny to you, especially because of the way she said it, in such a severe tone, as if she wasn't talking about the most ridiculous, abstract concept to have ever been fabricated.

Love is what keeps mother tied to father's heel like a shivering, needy dog all through the beatings and the screaming; love is what is whispered in your ear, in the middle of the night, to justify the pain; love is earning money for your parents because they are useless and cannot function without spending whatever income they get on substances that cloud their judgment. Love is simply another way humans deceive themselves.

So you muffle your laughter on the back of your hand as she tells you—soothing tone, gaze lost— about a young girl, beautiful as a sunflower, who one day met a charming man that amongst the crowd of suitors who desired her proved his superiority and worth by being the only one to treat her with real kindness. He cared for her beyond the curves drawn out by expensive dresses, he wanted to know who she was under all the layers of make-up and jewelry, he wanted to know what she liked, what made her feel good, what brought a grin upon her face, what caused her to shed tears. He was like a prince from her storybooks, gallant, brave and attentive, swooping in at the right time to save the girl from her tower, from her time of suffering, from the numerous greedy hands that kept her from spreading her wings.

Although she possessed vast knowledge of the most basic of dwellings, she had never bothered to learn of the matters of the heart—naively, she fell for him, her love as raw as a newborn's flesh, growing faster the more he fed her fantasies of escape. But she wasn't the exclusive sovereign of his attentions. There was another, and this one, unlike her, was winsome, free from the moment she was born to choose, to live as she wished. The lovesick girl didn't think much of it at first, waiting for the day the man realized who was the one who truly deserved him. She waited patiently to one day be rescued by her prince. She waited. And waited. _Wait_, she told herself. _Wait for him_.

"It took her five years to understand her prince charming would never make true of his promises." The old woman sighs, pinching the bridge of her crooked nose, "Five years of longing, of watching the love of her life come and go, of listening to constant reassurances, of endless waiting and of long nights and of spilled tears, until one morning the girl woke up with the light of day hitting her face and her mouth filled with the bitter taste of knowing that he had never told her he loved her back. Not even once." Unfocused green eyes peer into the obscure alleyway across from where you are sitting. "That's when it happened."

You, who started to ignore her the instant the word 'kindness' was spoken, return to the conversation with keen focus. "What happened?"

The age lines marring her face deepen, her smiling lips shake, "The acceptance of her situation brought great changes to her life. By far the biggest one was the awakening of a threat which had been silent, waiting as well, if you will, for the right moment to strike." Her hand settles on the center of her heaving chest. Your eyes find hers. "It starts here, child. In your lungs. A strange pain, an ardor that has no equal. Mild in the beginning, mortal as time goes on. The poor girl didn't know, when it began, what the meaning of the flower petals climbing the walls of her throat was. She just knew that whenever she thought of him, emissions of petals were to be expected. It hurt, left her dry, and it got worse each time. Breathing soon became the hardest chore she had to perform, coughing was the norm-she got weaker and weaker. Later, much later, she would discover that flowers were growing inside her lungs, like an infection. First were petals, then, bit by bit, as it worsened, whole flowers— someday, her body would be incapable of getting rid of every one of them, and she would suffocate on her lovely roses. And that, child, is no other than the illness of unrequited love."

Your eyes are wide as two moons. You can already feel the muscles of your cheeks pulling upwards. What a nice piece of fantasy.

It's a little cute, that just because you are a kid she thinks she can convince you through metaphors and sad stories of a reality that solely exists inside delusional heads like hers.

"Love is not a threat that ought to slip by ignored." She finishes softly, like a whisper of breeze, almost as if she's talking to herself.

"Of course," you answer mockingly, legs creaking as you stand up. "Thanks for the story."

The walk back home is ripe with unfiltered giggling.

At eight in the morning of the next day, lines of police cruisers crowd the street. A call was made half an hour ago informing of a possible murder perpetuated in the vicinity.

You sneak out the door while your parents trade joints and you manage to push through the wall of concerned neighbors, catching over the blue and red lights, the rows of officers and the yellow tape, the sight of a homeless woman face down on the cement, green eyes liquid like a dead fish's, hands deformed into claws covered in residues of blood, and from her open mouth: both foam and a pile of gory red roses, blooming.

You can't stop the onslaught of cruel laughter that comes.

* * *

It's the final phase of the Hunter Exam. At last, the charade of the Zoldyck siblings comes to a head in what seems to be a blood-curling conclusion—Illumi, his large eyes vacuuming any positive tints the atmosphere acquired as the test advanced, and little Killua, colorless as his hair, leaking fear through every pore, staring at his older brother like he is already holding his beating heart in unforgiving hands-, everyone is silent, witnessing the scene unfold, entrancing and twisted as it is for the similarity to Greek dalliances, and you look on, solemn as an animal's quiet passing in the vastness of nature, emptier than usual, lacking the spark of excitement, the dark fire you feed on whenever conflict arises nowhere to be found.

_You are just dazzled, _Illumi tells the boy. The underlying thread is clear—dazzled by what he doesn't have, what he is not, what he cannot comprehend, what is opposite to him.

Dazzled, it resounds, it echoes in your memory, the matter-of-fact shade to Illumi's enunciation, the unsaid resignation. There's a shaking on the elongation of Illumi's neck, a swallow that trembles, as if conveying the sharpness of needles, and an inoffensive closing of lashes that lasts longer than necessary, these are what reveal to the well trained eye that something else is transpiring inside the assassin's head while he talks and, whatever that might be, it's not being said. It won't outrun its cage of secrecy, either, you know.

However, that consideration is promptly left aside to rot somewhere in your subconscious when the heavy focus of his regard sparks, again, faced with his younger brother. Intensity that hasn't been tangible to you until this moment when you can see it breathe in heavily the tension coiled around the occupants of the room, a sensation you have always found hard to draw on top of the blank canvas of Illumi's features, is propelled in gallons, and when Illumi threatens to kill Gon, you know the meaning behind the clenching of fists and the bleeding that follows on the tender part of your hands, and it isn't what you hopelessly wish it would be.

Killua is technically vibrating at this juncture; it isn't a challenge to imagine the horrid collage the boy is bringing to life behind the dull mask that has stolen the spotlight away from his futile glares.

But Killua is wrong, you think; his fear, unfounded. He is special, he is the one with the highest potential, the most talented, the paragon of perfection, the parameter of everything a Zoldyck should aim to be. To Illumi, the child will never be on the same spectrum as the faceless, unimportant victims the man disposes of on a daily basis, the unworthy insects that dwell at the margins of their underground world.

In the end his heart is not the one that is being crushed dry of its juices, bare and exposed in the embrace of Illumi's thin fingers, not the one utterly in his thralls, dancing in the valleys of hard-edged calluses and knifed knuckles, not the one that bleeds out as flower petals do, after, when no one can see them taint your skin a distressed yellow.

* * *

Machi's concern would be welcome with a leer and exaggerated commotion if the circumstances weren't otherwise inclined to copiously mock you instead.

She is doing quick work with her needles on a lost limb, you sit there and watch and do your best to silence the reminders ringing in your head like loud siren calls. But you fail anyway, go on ahead and proceed to be the dumbest you've been so far, and before you can stop it, your lungs are about to be spat out on the carpeted floor of your hotel room, coughs manipulating the shake of your shoulders and back, just like—

_Stop._

_Do not._

_Refrain._

Coughs onto coughs; sweat forms where your fringe would be.

Machi's forehead creases in a frown, "Are you ill? You better not be, or else you'll be gluing that arm back on your own."

You try not to think about him when you fight. When you are confronted with sloppy techniques, not fully planned strategies, when mediocrity assaults you and disappointment is akin to the round of applauses rumbling through the arena in quantity and normalcy. You try not to, in front of the bathroom mirror at the end of the day, idly touching the sting of a split lip or the swell of a broken hip bone.

It's as effective as handing money over to an addict, it's giving a knife to someone who lives on the edge, and it's like asking an insect not to fly towards the warmth of light. You fight and you burn. You breathe and still burn.

That horrible, detestable itching where there should be none is acting, hollering from within, tearing your walls down.

Your eyes are vibrant but tired, they meet hers either way. She must have seen you concealing the coughing fits during the fight. Sometimes you cannot pretend out of existence what is in plain sight.

Her small nose twitches like that of a rabbit. You doubt she will agree with the comparison, so you tell her as much and don't even flinch when sharp ends sink into nerves.

"Fuck. You."

"My lovely fellow spider, I'd love it so much if you did~"

"Hisoka—"

"I am perfectly healthy Machi." And there is no humor, no room for discussion.

Ren flares, ominous and of a slimy toned purple, like the twisted, stretched-to-their-limits inner organs of the man you murdered last week for attempting to rob you (you buried your hands in his stomach and fondled until at least a minimal piece of the longing ceased to roar), "There is nothing to be concerned about."

The thrill the mild pain of her needles gave you fades-replaced by a nauseously hungry feeling you can't define-, and so does her voice, as her lips seal shut. The frown does not give the same courtesy. She continues to work silently. You lean back in your chair and will away the urge to crawl to the bathroom and empty your airways of unneeded obstacles, blocking the path to freely inhale and exhale.

* * *

It begins, as all things do, with something stupid.

You are interfering with Illumi's work, again, as it has already become a longstanding tradition in the history of your acquaintance, and the man is amusingly displeased as you try to convince him to humor you and grant you the pleasure of showing him a magic trick. He, as usual, grimaces internally at your choice of words, and follows along with his mission, unheeding of your nice requests.

Since today you are not aiming to anger him, you step back. Content, you observe as Illumi's artful style leaves no evidence of his passing, no spray from cut arteries, not a drop of chaos, no tortured screams, nothing that is not the shells falling one by one, like dominoes. It's the most beautiful performance you've ever been witness to.

But, as much as you derive delight from watching Illumi kill anything in his path, that is not what undoes the notions you believed about yourself. Seeing him, pretty as a doll, unresponsive as one, dressed in red that is not his, is not what turns the axis of the world.

It's how he looks at you, honest and unguarded, with the eyes others claim to be creepy and void, as if pondering what the actual fuck is going on in your mind, when you loudly moan after a perfectly executed heart removal. It's how he resembles a puzzled child, marveling at you as if he is not as insane and deranged as you are.

And you are sufficiently smart to acknowledge that the tremors you feel inside, caused by the admiration of inconsequential actions that have no relation to impending violence, are not a good omen.

* * *

Refusing to believe your eyes when it first happened, the barely remembered memory from twenty years ago pushing on the edges of your common sense, you slumbered in denial. Days, weeks and months rained on your sullen routine, you sensed them drop alongside each petal added to the reiterated ejections, yet you refused to acknowledge the core of the issue. It just wasn't possible. You didn't, couldn't, wouldn't…—it wasn't real, no matter the murmurs of death and roses that slithered across your consciousness whenever you fell asleep, throat itching.

However, the afternoon you finally coughed more than two petals at once, taking note of your abnormal delicate complexion and the blood that should have been safely tucked in your veins instead of painting the yellow monstrosity growing inside you, fingers sticky with red liquid, mucus and bile , was the moment you swallowed the bitter worm of truth. When your legs folded beneath you and you were sprawled on the ground in a flash was the moment you accepted the symptoms for what they were: warnings. You were dying. Worse yet, you were getting weaker. This, whatever it was, needed to end before it was too late.

So you travelled. Investigated. Dug information from all existent sources of data. Searching, wanting to understand.

It wasn't a common disease and it was rarely talked about. It required a high level of investment for its conception, a certain amount of intensity and feelings raw enough to turn corrosive, obsessive, out of ordinary; it started as and because of an unhealthy fixation—the lick of spark that ignited the hellish illness—, therefore the equally unhealthy manifestation of those yearnings on the affected individual in the form of deadly confessions: flowers, ready to burst from the lungs. Ideally, the assault on the respiratory system provided by the flowers could be stopped with the reciprocation of those feelings; although, as you subsequently confirmed, in the majority of cases it was safe to assume that the harbored love would never be returned. Feelings did not become deadly unless they grew in an abnormal evironment, you figured.

The stories you managed to collect were endless. Men and women who died choking on flowers years after their loved ones had perished. A teenager found dead side to side with the corpses of her boyfriend and his lover, hydrangeas pooled on her lap. A child who fell in love with a much older friend. Forbidden thoughts about a sibling, parents, sons and daughters. Various manifestations of human idiocy all over the world. And you were another number added to the list.

In a forgotten town, a woman of advanced age told you there was an alternate solution: surgery. Her daughter was saved from imminent death by a young doctor who wasn't afraid to risk everything for the sake of finding a cure for the unnamed disease, she claimed. The man cut her ribcage wide open, held the flaps of skin apart, and successfully extracted the treacherous bud that was given birth in her lungs. With the foreign object out of her body, the poisonous feelings exited as well. The madness that possessed her daughter when she saw the man she used to love without reason or measure was gone, leaving no traces in its wake, only a girl who no longer felt the burn of acid passion that once upon a time had corroded her spirit.

The woman looked at you, then, as if she could see what lay past a star and a teardrop. You muffled a cough with the back of your hand, tilting your neck as you analyzed her words, tracing the bump of your Adam's apple, and said—

* * *

Illumi looks, for lack of a more fitting adjective, like shit. His eyes are sunk and outlined in shadows, darkness expanding beyond the vacancy spots of their sockets, making the black seemingly never-ending. His lips, although covered with a shiny layer of cherry gloss, are cracked and dry, as if his teeth have found a new site to worry at apart from the inside of his cheeks. His expression is emptier than usual; his voice is as cheery as it is flat as he calls for your attention. When he sits, you eye the blue and green veins obnoxiously pressed to the revealing paleness of his naked hands, the bend of his wrists and the arch of his neck.

You think of a thousand excuses. Meaningless topics the two of you can bounce back and forth in roundabout conversations. Fake information about Killua's whereabouts. Anything to maintain him as he is, tranquil, serene, at your side, drinking although alcohol has no effect on him, breathing the same hard-to- take-in air, his personal brand of ice soothing the perpetual furnace that is your restless aura.

"Are you-"

"I'm fine, Hisoka. What is so important that you needed to tell me in person?" He is being as curt and rude as his upbringing allows him to be.

Getting accidentally immersed on the glossy descent of his curtain of hair, recalling gentler days, you ask yourself the same question. It's increasingly hard to comprehend how you constantly forget that spending time with Illumi can be as pleasant as getting your teeth pulled by an actual deontologist. You click your tongue, more infuriated than annoyed but hiding the fact as much as you can, and say, cutting straight to the chase, "Well, I just wanted to inform you that we might not see each other in a long while. You see, I'm going away for a bit and I do not precisely know how long that bit is going to take… My point is, I will not be available, in case you were planning on hiring me in the near or far future."

Illumi stares into his half-empty glass, unblinking; you can hear him sighing inwards, exasperation climbing down his esophagus. "Oh, is that so?" He gulps what is left of his drink, the muscles of his throat working in a manner too convulsive to be ideal or even remotely comfortable. Fuchsia clad lips purse in distaste, unknowingly recreating that which you scorn, "And why is that?"

You wave a hand in a purposefully careless gesture, a shark's grin encasing the hard edge of forced pleasantry, "I'm chasing after Chrollo. Now is about the proper time for the hunt, I think. You know how it is, with him and me."

"Ah," Illumi says uncaringly. A long boned hand reaches for the base of his throat where one of his elegant fingers casually tears at skin; the rest of them tap a frantic rhythm against his left collarbone, fluttering, like hurried moth wings.

Odd.

"Allergies?" you ask, fixated by how quickly smooth white turns to irritated red. You wonder if he'll draw blood, taking into account the slightly aggressive scratching his nail's inflicting, and the thought makes you lick your lips hungrily, makes the fist propping the side of your head clench tighter, makes you imagine the handsome taste blooming on your tongue, the liquid pooling in the gaps that keep your teeth from being too close.

Illumi shrugs, nonchalant as ever. "Of a sort."

"So…"

"So…?"

You have been feeling it since he set foot in the establishment. The constriction in your chest area, the fingers that want to carve a hole in it and pull out wrinkled hyacinths to crush them in the hold of your palms. Your meandering pain awakening at the regal image he makes, the strength masterfully crafted through every inch of uncovered and clothed anatomy.

Leaning forward, exaggeratedly batting of aquamarine eyelids that match the color of your heels, "Is that it?"

"What?" Illumi's dark orbs become marginally bigger, dropping far below the reddish smudges beneath your eyes, briefly stopping somewhere ranging from your nose to the tip of your chin. He slides backwards, his knees still pointed in your direction.

"Is that all you are going to say regarding the Chrollo issue? Are you not going to offer a helping hand or—"You cut yourself off, biting on an emerging cough.

Illumi's face does not change to express any kind of emotion asides from cheerful vacancy, but you have memorized him and his patterns and his way of being so thoroughly that you are aware of his ascending anger.

You wish you could give him a bouquet of yellow flowers, lovely hyacinths, delivered right into the unsuspecting hands that have clawed, destroyed, and eviscerated many.

"Shouldn't you be asking yourself first why you thought it would be a good idea to meet when you could have perfectly informed me of your getaway via text messages, instead of bringing me here to waste my time?"

You wish you could rip his pretty head from his pretty neck and put together a bouquet out of the blood-adorned remains.

"Sure, Illumi. I brought you here against your will. I most certainly made it impossible for you to refuse my invitation. Of course I was the one who forced you to waste your time." You snap, words pushing after one another in their desperation to come out on top, above everything else. "Is it not, 'Why the fuck did you come Illumi' a better question, in your humble and most appreciated opinion? Or is 'Why the fuck are you still here' far more appropriate, wouldn't you say, my dearest Zoldyck?"

Tension crackles, lightning zapping through marrow and tissue as your eyes collide. Nen threatens to explode. Shoulders harden, breaths are restrained, and bloodlust starts to gleam at the peak of the night.

Illumi's right hand curls into a fist.

Your tongue curls fleetingly on a burn located on the junction of upper and bottom lip.

The other man rises, the simmering twists of darkness in his eyes hissing that you are less than the grime clinging to the sole of his shoes.

"I'm going to ask for a refill," he says, a vein palpitating by his jaw, "Do you want anything?"

"Whiskey," you answer through the clench of your teeth, watching him nod robotically. Watching his back and his trim waist as he approaches the bar, where people instinctually know to stay as far from his space as possible.

Flowers tickle the back of your canines. You discreetly spit them, barricading yourself in a bathroom stall, watching helplessly as the toilet water swirls with beautiful orange hyacinths that ooze tendrils of burgundy. From tomorrow onwards, this is all you will have. All you will live on, until you find Chrollo.

Lust for the humming of the battlefield, excitement for the hunt, the promise for the end, hyacinths, and the shape of his mouth, Illumi's mouth, poised on the border of a glass, as the night failed to enthrall you both.

* * *

You had goaded him so many times with no positive results. Anything you did guaranteed a scoff and a roll of fused irises and pupils, at best. At worst, absolutely nothing.

It wasn't surprising, really, that what ultimately reached him was the mention of Killua. Not surprising, but infuriating nonetheless. If only you had known sooner that saying right in front of Illumi that Killua abhorred his family, him especially, would be the perfect trigger, the most immediate route to feel the needles rubbing against your jaw and neck.

"What did you just say?"

Illumi didn't even sound human, and that invited an excited sigh to fall from your tingling lips.

"He hates—" you began to say, and couldn't finish as a punishing cage closed around your throat.

The choking sounds you made were overpowered by the splintering of a knee cap, and suddenly, you were on your back, lying down, with Illumi straddling your hips, one trembling hand squeezing beneath your jaw, the other doing the same to what he had just fractured, his face darkened in negativity and killing instinct bearing down on yours, and you were lost to rampant sensations, to skin to skin contact and the weight of his hatred, so unfiltered, utterly terrifying, and you wanted him to press harder, to treat you worse, to give you savagery— you tried to tell him to hurt you until you couldn't erase the proof of his greatness from your shell, but your vocal chords wouldn't budge.

In your fantasies, it was always the other way around. You, breaking Illumi. You, forcing him to submit. But this right now, (the unbearable want, the throbbing of your groin, his knees digging into your sides, his need for destruction bleeding into you, seeking its corresponding half), was truth. This was communion, religion, an encounter between devotee and his vengeful God. Your blind faith in what Illumi could do made you delirious, enraptured by the thoughts of everything he had not done yet. In this moment, he could do as he pleased, use you, completely, unmercifully, to twist, move, reposition, abuse, beat, manhandle, anything.

_Anything._

At his disposal, all that you asked of your God was anything. _Everything._

And if his will was your demise…—Illumi, bashing your head, hard, till' your eyes liquefied and ran like milky, pasty rivers down skinned cheeks; Illumi, drawing ribs from the protection of dermis, abundantly baptized in your blood; Illumi, uncaring as he tore strings of muscle to separate your arms; Illumi, squashing your spine, rendering you useless, defenseless; Illumi, in all of his glory, rejoicing in the violation of your being while you let him slowly, torturously, violently kill you.

_Let him._

Your heart, beating at the rhythm of his crushing fingers. Your will, on a platter just for him.

Your eyes, undisclosed in what they hold at their center, connected with his, pleading.

Hastily, the excruciating pressure, the threat of death, the overpowering and violent aura, the heat of pain— they all disappear. Illumi climbed off you, suddenly relaxed, attitude at odds with that of the rabid creature who had been seconds away from biting a new smile into your throat. A stream of black hair hid his face from view, and a numbing chill seized control of the frantic flow of blood returning to where Illumi's claws had been.

Perplexed, still unable to move, you saw him leave.

Somehow, the way his fingers let go of you, right then, as if he could not stand to hold you a minute longer, felt like a betrayal.

* * *

To his credit, he doesn't do much, when he steps through the door of what should have been his void of all-presence hotel room, other than plant his feet firmly where he stands, blocking the entrance.

The answering giggle is off, a little high pitched, too raspy, sounds uncanny even to your own ears, but then again, death will do that to any man. Changes are to be expected.

With a flick of a wrist the switch by the wall against which you are perched is turned. Instantaneously the light courses, ruthless, traversing the room, propelling what hid in shadows into stark view; it does not shake you, it is not nearly as violent as how Illumi, an immobile statue by the door, parading unhealthiness like a new set of designer clothes, with the scent of murder transpiring from his pores, hits you, strongly, just by being here, like the first time oxygen was forced to leave your chest from the solid strike of an iron pipe. Illumi, just as cold, eons more dangerous.

You are painfully conscious of the fundamental parts you are missing, of the open holes the limbs and fragments that you now have to recreate employing the aid of Texture Surprise occupied once.

How long has it been, since you last saw him? Since he last saw you?

_Swallow your regrets._

"Are you alright, Illumi?" The question escapes you, unbidden—reminiscent of a night that died a lifetime ago.

The eldest of the Zoldyck children stares. His hands, melted to his sides, are shaking.

"I thought you were dead." He says, at last. His voice belays nothing where his throat reddens and his eyebrows struggle not to move. "As far as everyone knew, Chrollo had obliterated Heaven's Arena, and you with it."

Ire without explanation sparkles to life as the smile you wear crumbles, minutely, remembering how close you were to what you have been chasing your whole life, and how wanting and lacking you had found it to be when you were confronted with the end itself.

"Your words wound me, Illumi." As if hurt, you claw at the fabric of your crop top, right over the thing that is barely half a heart. You push away from the wall, the narrowed slits of your eyes vigilant. "I'd hoped you had at least put some of your faith in me."

Illumi doesn't seem to hear you. His unrelenting focus unnerves you—the strange way in which his gaze is almost palpable, trailing the unblemished skin of your knuckles, the mannerisms of your rambling mouth, the tip of your chin, the high slope of questioning brows, the crafted nose, the expanding of your torso as you breathe. He is particularly keen on the slight sway of your hips as you walk towards the dining table and sit without permission.

You would not admit it, that the attention unleashes a full body shiver.

"To be fair, I did die."

"How did you survive?" Illumi asks, dragging syllables. Blinking, waking from the trance he was submerged in.

He finally steps away from the door, taking his ridiculous coat off, the tips of his fingers unsteady as they reach for the buttons at the base of his throat.

You raise your index finger and laugh cruelly. "Ah, but Illu, you see, a magician never, ever, reveals his secrets. That is the oldest rule in the book. You should know that by now. Though I suppose that I can tell you my miraculous revival may or may not be related to my Bungee Gum, which as you know—"

"Possesses both the properties of rubber and gum." Illumi recites, finishing for you. He is almost scoffing the line, and that, plus the fed up undertone of his delivery, generates a smile, a true one.

You missed this.

Not just his brutality, not just his anger, not just the danger, but the whole of this: the contradictory blend of opposing emotions, mutual understanding, uncontrollable bafflement at his most pervasive of quirks, to be at ease with him and still be conscious that he could kill you at any second if that was what he wanted, to know him and still be taken by storm by what he does, to be frustrated at him and keep coming back for more, to give and to take, to want to fight him and to want much more than that, want so much more from him, to stretch the quiet moments for as long as you are permitted, to enjoy him broken and enjoy him mended, to unravel him and be unraveled in return…

Illumi, in this sense, is unique. Different from all the shiny, beautiful treasures in your toy box. Amongst them, he is the best, has been the best from since you laid eyes on him, the day he stumbled upon you, young and proud.

This is why, perhaps, you said to the woman whose daughter was saved 'No'.

You take him in, as he is. The cascades of ebony strands you have longed to worship with your lips, one at a time, his round and big owl-like eyes that have drowned you before, the delicate bone structure of a face that never emotes, that is enchanting all the more for it, a face that is intriguing and beautiful and that you can sometimes read like the palm of your hand, the fine fingers you want entwined in your own.

He is dull, strict, monotone and unfunny. He makes you feel alive. Even when he is doing nothing of interest, you ache for him.

To look at him and not feel ravenous for his scraps, to not desire him when he is fresh-bathed with the rewards of his endeavors, to brush bare shoulders with him and not disintegrate under his touch, to not long for the invisible kiss of an invisible smile against your neck or the shell of your ear, to not dream of his power subjugating you or of you building a nesting place inside the hearth of his ribcage—is unfathomable.

As disgusted as you were by what you felt, as weakened as it made you, and in spite of the occasions you entertained getting rid of the source that converted flames into poison, you always knew a world where Illumi's presence does not make yours sing, ignited and heightened, is not meant to exist.

The ghost of amusement vanishes from the assassin's limp mouth and eyes.

"Hisoka, why did you come?"

A sentence so loaded that you can't be bothered to unpack it at the moment.

Without further dilation you procure a sheet of paper out of thin air. Deliberately, you let go. It plummets to the surface of the table. Manicured nails indicate to Illumi that it would be in his best interest to make a grab for it.

Illumi clicks his tongue in irritation but complies anyway. He takes the paper and starts reading. The top of his digits are blue, as though he is either cold or suffering from poor blood circulation, and you notice the paper crinkling in their grasp as he quickly scans the printed letters. When he is done he looks up, returning the leer of your stare.

"So what do you say, Illumi? Will you kindly do me the honor of joining the Phantom Troupe and killing me?"

You smile with the brilliance of sunlight.

This is it, the proper conclusion you reached after hours of reflection and deliberation. The culmination of years spent on uncertainty and yearning; this is when you surrender to the inevitable, and your lungs tremble, a mix of fear and liberation making them shudder as they wait for his response, which he doesn't give at first, absorbing you entire with those infinite and obscure pits.

Then, gradually, his lips curve to create a sight no one has ever seen before, and from that initial mirthful, awkward, neophyte motion, a flood of bleeding hearts overflows and splatters at both your feet, blushed crimson with fresh blood straight from Illumi's insides, saliva stricken and complimented by the unforeseen touches of repressed tears.

* * *

_Two starving children met one faithful day. The oldest was from a godless wasteland, and the youngest was born in a prison of vultures and killers. They were both ugly with bruises and broken irreparably, broken in ways that could not be fixed. They looked at each other, at the red welts and marks from fingers and weapons and utensils used to hurt, at their hunched postures, at the fear and loneliness buried in mutually strange eyes, and against their will, against everything they knew and everything their lives had taught them, the two of them thought, at the exact same time:_

_It was always you, wasn't it?_

* * *

Illumi is seventeen when he sees you for the first time.

Unknowing, after another successful mission, noises of distress and torment nestle in his eardrums as he stands in an alley, corpse cold lying beneath, aspect deformed by anguish. Curious to see for himself the origin of the sounds, he follows them and stumbles upon a picture that will sear the back of his eye lids and become a constant feature of his sleepless nights in the years to come.

He discovers you standing beneath the eerie glow of moonlight, naked except for the fluids coating you from head to toe. Tar like liquid that Illumi knows to be blood hugs the pink of your hair—sweaty and curly as it frames your obscene countenance, provocative in its state of arousal—, the toned peak of shoulders, breast and collarbones, the firm mounds of your ass and the vast extension of shapely legs.

Shameless, you shift a little to the left, allowing teenage Illumi to catch the silhouette of your cock, hard and curved against your flat stomach. The new angle reveals too the streaks of semen drying on your abs and leaking down the insides of your muscular thighs, dropping to cement with rhythmical _plop, plop, plops_.

Illumi will later deny, at the cost of death, ever being hard pressed to relocate his wandering and dedicated visual examination to the bodies littered everywhere around you. By the looks of the scene, you fucked and got fucked by all, before you killed them in gruesome ways that ended with decorations of intestines and guts spilled on the empty street like paint.

Illumi waits, ineffectually, for the revulsion to connect with his brain, with the spiking heartbeat that screeches above reason.

One of the men is still alive, pitifully trying to hold the opening of his belly shut, wailing like a pathetic animal off to slaughter, and Illumi watches the attractive exposure of teeth, as you settle one unexpectedly dainty foot on top of the man's balding head and _crush._

As your heel gets buried in brain mass and shattered bone, producing a viscous explosion, the molten gold of your eyes, sparkling wickedly, turn to caress Illumi's across the distance.

The boy shudders, and thinks: you are wrong.

Too reckless, too obvious, too messy.

You are the kind of unhinged beast his parents warned him about, monstrous, wild and hedonistic, fickle, faithful only to personal whims—the antithesis of what a Zoldyck values and how a Zoldyck should behave. You are inferior, a slave to your own appetites, which you refuse to reign in.

You are not beautiful, you do not captivate him enough to wonder what it would be like if he ever let his inhibitions loose, lowered his well put together mask long enough to experience a portion of the elation you live with every day.

You are not interesting, you are not important. You deserve to be eradicated, with his fingers throttling a collar of deep, black marks into the smooth baring of vulnerable throat, ripping into jutting hip bones, yanking away with a bite the rosy tips of feverish and roused nipples, cradling fractured knees to pull those long legs—

When thinking doesn't work, Illumi remembers: Family and nothing else matters. Zoldycks do not feel for anything or anyone. Distractions are forbidden.

Mother once said he was to marry someone proper, wealthy, beneficial to the family, someone pliant, moldable, willing to do anything for their husband, and most importantly, someone who meant nothing.

Father once said that lack of passion was what made their family the most formidable.

Killua holds priority over any other task or preference, there is not a spot for anything else, other than him, the rest of his siblings, and his parents.

If Silva and Kikyo Zoldyck ever saw you, they would not stare in contemplation of such untamed and graceful violence, they would crush you as the exotic blossom you are, the same way you crushed that man's skull.

Illumi gathers his resolve and leaves with no further involvement, ignoring as your Nen is released into the open, contaminating the midnight wind with the sickeningly sweet and artificial smell of bubblegum.

A year later, after several unintended meetings, after you track him down over and over and force polite conversation out of Illumi's unwilling lips, is when he coughs the first fuchsia petal, recalling a sloppy sham of a kiss on the cheek, and candy breath floating to his nose.

* * *

**A/N: **_(Headcanon time: I like to think that Hisoka was the one who triggered Illumi's sexual awakening- given that he's so glaringly overt in that area and Illumi seems to be more on the uninterested side of things, unless he gets slapped right in the face with the fact- and because it was Hisoka of all people he had to fixate on, he now has very twisted ideas about sexuality and sex in general. So if it's not bloodthirsty, perverted, dressed like a clown, wearing heels or make up, depraved and lacking decorum, it won't get Illumi hot and bothered, just so you all now.)_

_Thank you so much for reading! Don't forget that comments are welcome and appreciated here :)_


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